87
9
156
!
in a creditable condition. Mr. Stewart, the Inspector of schools, in his last report dated 14th February 1877, gave a return showing that whilst the number of children under sixteen years of age in Hongkong amounts to 26,247, the total number attending all kinds of schools amounts only to 1,640. Not counting the infants under six years of age, this shows that in this Colony (with a total population of 140,000) there are 19,000 children of age attending no school whatever.
Nor is it merely that the Government scheme of primary education in Hongkong, costly as it is, has broken down as compared with the extent of public instruction in similar communities to this, but it must also be remembered that this is one of the very few Colonies in Her Majesty's Empire where there is no Government Reformatory, and Government Industrial School. The only interest shown by the Government in the reformation of juveniles in Hong Kong is an annual contribution of six hundred dollars a year in aid of the Christian Brothers' Reformatory at West Point.